Exhibition for Moral Education and Nature Care Awareness | Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana | 22-23 Sep, 2017

Excessive and untimely application of fertilizer nitrogen has become a common practice among farmers. Application of nitrogen fertilizers above the actual requirement does not increase yield; rather a large proportion of the applied nitrogen escapes from soil-plant systems to atmosphere, creating pollution and climate change problems. Increased succulence, over growth and dark green colour produced due to excessive nitrogen use results in increased insect-pest incidence and the crop also becomes prone to lodging.

The farmers generally use leaf colour as an indicator to decide amount and time of fertilizer N application to crops but are not aware of the scientific basis of using leaf colour as an indicator of fertilizer N demand. The Punjab Agricultural University has developed PAU-Leaf Colour Chart (PAU-LCC) as a diagnostic tool that guides farmers to make need-based urea application decisions based on the leaf colour of the first fully exposed top leaf. The farmers already use leaf colour as visual indicator to decide fertilizer N application to crops but have set their eyes on dark green colour shade as threshold. The PAU has established appropriate threshold leaf greenness for rice, wheat and maize crops.

 An awareness Campaign was organized at PAU Kisan Mela on September 22-23, 2017 to educate farmers about the harmful effects of excessive use of fertilizer nitrogen and to adopt PAU-LCC recommendation to ensure judicious use of fertilizer urea. Atam Pargas PAU unit educated the farmers about the correct use of LCC. The farmers were quite enthusiastic about learning the benefits of using LCC. LCCs were also distributed to the farmers.

 The successful motivation of farmers to ensure PAU-LCC based N applications can lead to annual saving of at least Rs. 200 crore by farmers in the Punjab along with huge saving of the government for subsidy on urea. The individuals and organizations concerned about the conservation of nature and sustainability of agriculture in the state should own moral responsibility of educating farming community for need based use of nitrogen fertilizers using PAU-LCC in cereals.